Military of the Peninsular War

Created by the British artist Sir Robert Ker Porter in 1810, Military of the Peninsular War belongs to the artist’s body of work devoted to military subjects.

The work is executed in watercolor and pen and black ink over graphite on cream wove paper, combining carefully drawn lines with transparent passages of colour.

Its subject refers to the Peninsular War, the conflict fought in Spain and Portugal during the wider Napoleonic Wars and one of the defining military struggles of the early nineteenth century.

Measuring approximately 44.1 by 37.1 centimetres, the sheet demonstrates the detailed observational character of Porter’s military imagery on a relatively intimate scale.

Today, Military of the Peninsular War belongs to the Prints and Drawings collection of the Yale Center for British Art and forms part of the Paul Mellon Collection.